Comprised of Emma Baker, Owen Wuerker, Genevieve Ludwig and Chris Taylor, Big Hush trade in their usual blissed-out shoegaze fuzz for a slightly more subtle approach to the sludgey classic. Bassist Chris Taylor (also a member of Pygmy Lush) elaborates:

“I wrote the skeleton on each of pygmylush’s [Nirvana cover] songs and this big hush song, brought them in and let the ensemble of both bands color it how they saw fit. I always approach Nirvana covers as a re-write, I’m not that talented as a player so I always try to dumb them down a bit so I can play and sing them at the same time, what happens after that is a by product of the amazingly talented musicians I keep company with.

Every member of big hush is a songbird, they can all sing incredibly well, and immediately have a catalog of harmonies to choose from, Genevieve and Emma make the scale and dynamic grand, Owen can play literally every instrument very well, and in fact he rewrote the basic riff I gave him to give it texture, on this recording he plays every instrument, organ, acoustic, bass, shaker, tambourine, and we recorded this version in one day.

Sifting was an interesting song to approach this way, it’s basically a kinda metal Melvins kinda thing, so we pretty much followed the structure and not the notes, and just tried to make it dreamy.”

“Big Hush’s principal affinities with dream-pop [are] the blurry quality of its vocals and the way its steel-wool guitars scrubbed the other elements… While Big Hush is still defining its style, it’s already moved beyond predictable genre tags.”

Completing a trifecta of tributes to Nirvana‘s studio albums by Robotic Empire, on this third full-LP homage, “Doused in Mud, Soaked in Bleach”, Big Hush‘s cover joins a diverse array of others from the likes of Basement, Beach Slang, Circa Survive, Daughters, Defeater, The Fall of Troy, Mean Jeans, Rob Crow’s Gloomy Place, The Saddest Landscape, This Will Destroy You, Thou and Young Widows.

“Doused in Mud, Soaked in Bleach” is available on vinyl and digitally this Saturday, April 16th. The vinyl is arriving now at stores for Record Store Day, and the digital release is also available for pre-order with tracks by Big Hush, Basement, Circa Survive and This Will Destroy You unlocked within for immediate download:

“The framework for “Paper Cuts” was a welcomed challenge to work on as the track is already doomy and repetive. Going slow and low seemed to be the way to put our own stamp on the cover while maintaining the rawness and intensity of the original.”

The cover is part of Robotic Empire’s third Nirvana tribute LP, completing a trifecta of homages to the legendary grunge band’s studio albums. “Doused in Mud, Soaked in Bleach” is being released in conjunction with Record Store Day, akin to predecessors “Whatever Nevermind” (2015) and “In Utero: In Tribute” (2014).

“Doused in Mud, Soaked in Bleach” will be available on both vinyl and digitally come Saturday, April 16th. The physical release is en route to stores for Record Store Day, and the digital release is available for pre-order now:

Digital pre-orders (aside from Google Play) include immediate downloads of the This Will Destroy You track, along with previously streamed covers from Basement and Circa Survive, premiering over the last few weeks via The AV Club and Alternative Press respectively:

Utilizing their renown sound of heavy yet melodic hardcore/alternative rock, Basement opts for a somewhat traditional rendition of the frustrated anthem. On their approach to the song, vocalist Andrew Fisher elaborates:

“We picked ‘School’ because it’s really heavy and so simple but so good. It has two parts the whole way through. Just goes to show how dynamics can make a song interesting. Whenever we play it I wish we wrote it because it’s that good.

We flirted with the idea of trying to make it ‘our own’ and change it, but because the song is so simple everything we came up with sounded forced and wrong. Instead we thought we’d try our best to do the song justice and so recorded it live and tried to keep it as true to the original as possible. I think it came out pretty cool”

The track is found on Robotic Empire’s third tribute to Nirvana‘s legendary studio albums. “Doused in Mud, Soaked in Bleach” completes a trifecta, with the classic debut album “Bleach” covered in full by 13 diverse artists (including Basement, Beach Slang, Big Hush, Circa Survive, Daughters, Defeater, The Fall of Troy, Mean Jeans, Rob Crow’s Gloomy Place, The Saddest Landscape, This Will Destroy You, Thou and Young Widows) and set for release on Saturday, April 16th (Record Store Day) on both vinyl, and digitally.

Digital pre-orders of the album are up now, with “School” available immediately:

We are extremely stoked to announce our third Nirvana tribute LP, “Doused In Mud, Soaked In Bleach”, completing a trifecta of homages to the legendary band’s official studio albums.

The Hall of Famer’s debut LP “Bleach” is covered in full, start to finish, by a diverse range of independent/alternative artists including Basement, Beach Slang, Big Hush, Circa Survive, Daughters, Defeater, The Fall of Troy, Mean Jeans, Rob Crow’s Gloomy Place, The Saddest Landscape, This Will Destroy You, Thou and Young Widows.

Appropriately reflecting Nirvana‘s rawest studio album alongside a full-circle nod to our root genres, this is arguably the darkest, heaviest release in the tribute series. A tasteful re-envision of these classic songs sees all 13 “Bleach” tracks run through the bands’ creative engines, putting an intense new perspective on these 25+ year old songs.

Today, Circa Survive premiers their cover of ‘Love Buzz’, originally written/performed by Shocking Blue but made infamous by Nirvana. Alternative Press is streaming the song now along with a brief Q&A with the band:

On their method of covering a cover, Brendan Ekstrom from Circa Survive says:

“It’s hard to explain but in my mind ‘Love Buzz’ is a Nirvana song. It’s one of the first songs that I obsessed over when I was 14 years old and was learning to play guitar. At the time, I thought Nirvana wrote it. It just fit so well with the rest of the record…. I didn’t need to listen to the originals when the band who was making me believe in music had their own amazing version for me to listen to.”

Circa Survive is one of three reoccurring bands who’ve contributed to all of the Nirvana tribute LPs Robotic Empire’s issued, including 2015’s “Whatever Nevermind” and 2014’s “In Utero: In Tribute”. Like both previous tributes, the vinyl edition of “Doused In Mud, Soaked In Bleach” is being released in conjunction with Record Store Day, occurring on Saturday, April 16th this year.

The Record Store Day edition exclusive metallic-silver vinyl color and includes a bonus oversized poster, with standard editions (sans poster) to follow RSD via our Online Store. All copies include a high-quality digital download of the full release.

The album will also be released digitally across all major platforms on Saturday, April 16th, with iTunes and Bandcamp pre-orders live now, including an immediate download of the Circa Survive cover for pre-orderers:

Philadelphia’s Nothing have released a stunning music video for ‘Something in the Way’, their Nirvana cover released in April on Robotic Empire’s “Whatever Nevermind” tribute album.

Stereogum premiered the video, stating that Nothing‘s rendition “does heighten the melancholic lyrics by including a plodding piano in its inaugural moments. Kevin Haus directed the accompanying video, which navigates a fragmented narrative about a woman in search of something.”

The feature launched earlier today, including coverage of the (NSFW) music video:

Our second tribute to Nirvana, titled Whatever Nevermind, is out today. This album sees Boris, Cave In, Circa Survive, Kylesa, La Dispute, Nothing, Pygmy Lush, Thou, Torche, Touche Amore, White Reaper, Wrong and Young Widows running the classic Nevermind album through their diverse creative filters, and we couldn’t be happier with the results.

The vinyl is released today to coincide with Record Store Day 2015, but for all those who weren’t able or close enough to a participating store to attend, we have a mailorder-edition of this release available now in our Online Store:

In addition to the tribute album, we’ve stocked as many of the contributing bands’ (and related outfits) available releases that we were able to get copies of. Along with many other great new titles and restocks, over a hundred items have been added to our Online Store. Here is the full list:

Roughly a year ago La Dispute recorded a tribute to Nirvana‘s ‘Polly’ at a live show in Seattle, capturing the aesthetic of the originators run through the filters of La Dispute‘s creative engines. The A/V Club showcased the angular version of the classic track and we felt this rendition wonderfully fit the vision we have for our Nirvana tribute series.

On the cusp of releasing Whatever Nevermind alongside Record Store Day 2015, the venerable All Music site has penned an excellent spotlight on La Dispute‘s contribution, which gives a great insight into the far-reaching influence of Nirvana and why La Dispute chose to cover ‘Polly’:

From the feature, La Dispute bassist Adam Vass explains how they approached the cover:

“It’s hard, you don’t want to remove it so far from the source material to where it isn’t identifiable anymore, but at the same time if we were to just have played it the way it was on the record, it wouldn’t have been as good as the original version, and it would have felt wrong, like we were abusing the opportunity. I like to think that we found happy ground in between those two extremes, and we changed it a little bit, but just enough to make it something special for us but still stay true to the original track.”

The A/V’ Club‘s original feature includes a short documentary on the musicians and cover song, which can also be found here:

Instead of their trademark whitewash of guitar layers, NOTHING opts for a starker approach to the somber classic, with piano and vibrant vocals up front in Will Yip’s beautiful mix.

The track is found on Robotic Empire’s Whatever Nevermind tribute to NIRVANA‘s breakout album, which sees Nevermind covered in full and set for release on April 18th (Record Store Day) on both vinyl, and digitally.

Digital pre-orders of the album are up now, with “Something In The Way” available immediately: